BusinessWire
October 04, 2005 06:00 AM US Pacific Timezone

Ixia Advances Transport Network Testing for Triple Play Services; IxChariot(R) 6.10 and IxProfile 1.00 Deliver New Video, Voice Testing Capabilities, and Significantly Extend Capture/Replay Functionality

CALABASAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 4, 2005--Ixia (NASDAQ:XXIA), a leading, global provider of IP network testing solutions, announced today new capabilities for executing realistic application testing over IP networks with the simultaneous releases of IxChariot 6.10 and IxProfile 1.00. IxChariot is the premier test tool in the industry for emulating virtually any type of application traffic in a network environment. IxProfile is a new application in the Ixia product family providing the ability to analyze production network traffic and automatically generate complex voice, video, and data traffic for replay at speeds of up to 10 Gbit/s. Together, these new releases simplify automated script generation while increasing the number of video, voice, and data services that can be emulated.

Modern corporate and broadband networks, both wired and wireless, are being stressed by thousands of multi-service applications, many of which are proprietary to Fortune 1000 companies and government agencies that rely on them to solve mission-critical problems. The increased deployment of video and voice services over IP is pushing the limits of these networks in previously unforeseen ways. Together, these applications can cause significant headaches for network equipment manufacturers trying to determine the performance of their equipment when deployed in the networks of their customers. In addition, many service providers offering service level agreements (SLA) to these organizations need to offer concrete performance measurements that prove the capabilities of their networks in supporting these applications.

To address these issues, the 6.10 release of IxChariot introduces new video stream emulation with dedicated video quality assessment via the Media Delivery Index (MDI) metric. The combination of the new video capabilities, new voice over IP (VoIP) signalling emulation (for both H.323 and SIP) and the established voice and data application scripts and metrics enables IxChariot to deliver the most comprehensive Triple Play network and device assessment tool in the market today. All traffic generation options offer support for both IPv4 and IPv6, including multicast and Quality of Service.

IxProfile 1.00 provides a comprehensive solution for analyzing production networks running proprietary and standards-based applications by allowing the user to import protocol analyzer trace files from a live network to reproduce TCP client/server transactions, UDP, or RTP streams. The imported data is then used to automatically generate test scripts that can be scaled to represent hundred of thousands of users loading the network with traffic. IxProfile 1.00 is also capable of directly creating traffic generation scripts from a client PC without using an analyzer by tracing any application that uses the Winsock API. The IxProfile engine automatically produces traffic generation scripts for the market-leading IxChariot application. Even greater scalability is offered by the automatic generation of hardware stream definition files that can be used to replay the captured traffic at up to 10 gigabits per second in IxChariot or IxExplorer, Ixia's Layer 2-3 data test application.

IxChariot release 6.10 also extends IxChariot's existing IPv6 support to include all management and reporting traffic, ideally positioning the application for testing the performance of devices running in pure IPv6, as well as dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 networks. Accompanying this release is a new set of Performance Endpoints to test embedded Linux, Windows CE, and Linux 64-bit based hosts, such as WLAN-enabled application-specific devices (ASD).

For customer's running IxChariot on Ixia's dedicated hardware test platform, IxChariot 6.10 seamlessly integrates with Ixia's new Aptixia Stack Manager component. Stack Manager allows quick and easy configuration to run IxChariot on Ixia's 10/100/1000 Ethernet, 10GE, and ATM Load Modules, plus a new set of key WAN impairment features, such as packet duplication, reordering, and delay.

Other key new features of the IxChariot 6.10 and IxProfile 1.00 release include:

IxChariot 6.10:

-- IPv6 multicast testing on Win32 Performance Endpoints

-- CPU utilization reporting on WinCE Performance Endpoint

-- IxChariot API updates to include IPv6 support for VoIP pairs

IxProfile 1.00:

-- Ability to maintain TCP/UDP port numbers and payloads in generated IxChariot scripts

-- Ability to optionally load the Layered Service Provider (LSP) for Winsock Tracing

-- Completely customizable GUI offering user and task-centric views of the imported data streams

To learn more about the IxChariot product family: www.ixiacom.com/ixchariot

To learn more about the IxProfile product: www.ixiacom.com/ixprofile

Products Now Available: IxChariot 6.10, IxProfile 1.00

About Ixia

Ixia is a leading, global provider of high performance IP network testing solutions. Its highly scalable solutions generate, capture, characterize, and emulate network and application traffic, establishing definitive performance and conformance metrics of network devices or systems under test. Ixia's testing solutions are used by Network and Telephony Equipment Manufacturers, Semiconductor Manufacturers, Service Providers, Governments, and large Enterprises to validate the functionality and reliability of complex IP networks, devices, and applications. Ixia's Triple Play test solutions address the growing need to test voice, video, and data services and network capability under real world conditions. Ixia's vision is to be the world's pre-eminent provider of solutions to enable testing of next generation IP Triple Play networks. Ixia's analysis solutions utilize a wide range of industry-standard interfaces, including Ethernet, SONET, ATM, and wireless connectivity, and are distinguished by their performance, accuracy, reliability, and adaptability to the industry's constant evolution.

For more information, contact Ixia at 26601 W. Agoura Road, Calabasas, CA 91302; (818) 871-1800, Fax: (818) 871-1805; Email: info@ixiacom.com or visit our Web Site at http://www.ixiacom.com

Ixia(R), the Ixia four petal logo(R), IxExplorer(R), IxChariot(R), and Optixia(R) are registered trademarks of Ixia; IxLoad, IxScriptMate, IxVoice, IxVPN, IxAccess, IxAnalyze, IxANVL, and IxAuthenticate are trademarks of Ixia. Unless otherwise indicated, other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.